MBA 604 Orange Juice: Primary Information

| the importance of information || the marketing information system |
| primary information || human - computer interaction |
| new media development || usability |
| secondary information || internet searching |

The Questions

Who are our customers?

How do they behave?

The Answers

Market Research

primary data secondary data

expensive cheap

time-consuming quick

valid, relevant questionable validity, relevance

Research Instruments include mechanical or electronic devices, although the survey questionnaire is the most common instrument for marketing research.
Surveys help people describe reasons for their behavior, but surveys can be plagued by problems in completion. They presume self-knowledge and a willingness to reveal it.

Observations of actual behavior may not help understand why people act as they do.

Experiments establish cause and effect relationships. However, controlling for variables such as the 4 P's is difficult in real-world situations. We're reluctant to experiment on people. When we add avatars and telepresence, will we remain that reluctant?

Data Collection Methods

Your sampling plan must address who (sampling unit), how many (sample size), and how to choose decisions of drawing a sample (probability or nonprobability).

Surveys

Mail questionnaires provide excellent control over interviewer effects. Since no interviewer is present, no interpersonal influences are possible. Mail questionnaires may elicit more honest and in-depth information, but the inability to distinguish respondents from non-respopndents makes inference to a general population difficult. Email questionnaires suffer from the same problems. In comparison to snail mail, they're quicker, cheaper, easier to change, easier to process (no manual data entry), and can be linked to other online marketing information.

Telephone interviewing enables sample control and fast data collection. Many marketing contexts, such as political campaigns, need almost overnight information on the effectiveness of the latest promotions. Telephones reach diverse geographic markets, and can be linked to computers for easy data analysis. Problems with respondent cooperation may become increasingly important over time. Online interviewing hasn't quite integrated telephony yet. Until we gain an audio voice to supplement our written voice, online interviewing can't replace telephone interviewing. When it does, this form of data collection will retain all of its advantages without accruing any disadvantages. A combined audio and video connection will merge this form of data collection with the personal interview.

Personal interviewing is very flexible. It can provide a rich, deep volume of subjective, anecdotal, and impressionistic data for the researcher. Also, personal interivewers can follow up unexpected or unusual responses that other collection methods are not prepared to handle. Using groups in personal interviews can also reveal social influences that may be important in consumer decision making. However, we haven't begun to think about the potentials and challenges of personal interviewing in cyberspace. I don't need to elaborate here on the computer screen's utter and complete inability to replace the physical presence of two human beings in the same room. However, to what extent does the computer screen resemble what the theater folks call the fourth wall? As we gain the bandwidth to emerge as actors in this space, we will be represented by avatars (digital puppets) and be able to assume a range of personae not possible in a room. In a 3D virtual reality, the market researcher's avatar will be interviewing the customer's avatar. Wayne may have to plan on an expansion of Bry-Lin.

Observations

Ideally, you're a fly on the wall in the mind of your customer while he or she decides to buy. Even if your company makes a product as substantial as steel, as marketers and managers, you understand that information is your stock-in-trade.

Ideally, you're a fly on the wall in the mind of your customer while he or she decides to buy your information. You're selling ideas in an information economy. You're competing not for dollars but for attention.

How?

last update: May 26, 1998
http://toLearn.net/marketing/iprimary.htm